Father of Mine
9th chapter of Fuega Fuega. Yep, it's back! Prologue When you’ve been waiting to meet someone your entire life, you begin to imagine what they’ll be like. And no matter what you’ve been told about them, you tend to think of them as a sort of hero, just because they’re related to you and you don’t know them. It’s strange, now that I think about it after all that has happened to me. What I remember very clearly about my father was that he was nothing like I expected him to be. Where Have You Been? “C’mon, Fuega kitty, we’re almost to the Hudson pack’s den.” Butch stopped in the middle of the road, hopping from paw to paw so he wouldn’t get burned by the strange gray surface that reflected the heat of the sun. “Peanut kitty is very nice, it’s going to be swell to meet him.” I trotted behind the bulldog, not wanting to go fast but being forced to by the hot ground. I hadn’t slept at all last night after Butch told me that my father lived on Hart Street, and I was tired and reluctant to meet Peanut. I mean, what were you supposed to say to the father you had never seen? And what if this cat wasn’t even my father? Either way, I knew this was going to be awkward. “Butch, did you ever meet your father?” I asked. “Yep,” he barked cheerfully. “He was a purebred bulldog with a registration and everything. He didn’t show, but he had fathered a few litters. His alpha called him Studmuffin.” “And your mother?” I asked, catching up to him. “Was she a purebred?” “No, she was a mix of bulldog and pitbull. Her alpha called her Bella.” Butch began walking again, towards that fateful house at the end of Hart Street. “Her alpha wanted to breed her once and then spay her.” “Spay her? You mean…prevent her from having kits?” “Yep. They call it spaying for females and neutering for males. Most of the pets here on Hart Street are spayed or neutered. Including myself.” Butch suddenly looked uncomfortable and a little queasy. “It’s not a happy thing, to be neutered. They put you to sleep—not in the death way, just for a short time so you won’t feel anything…but once you wake up, you feel tired and drowsy and…like everything wild and tough was taken from you.” I shuddered. “That doesn’t sound nice. I can’t imagine Carly wanting to be spayed.” “I heard the actual operation is a little harder on the females because the vets have to cut them open, but the long-term effects aren’t as bad.” “So, your father…was he there when you were born?” “Nope. Mama gave birth to me and my brothers and sisters at her alpha’s house. And then after we were a few weeks old, and we could hear and see and move around, Studmuffin’s owner brought him to meet us. He didn’t really pay attention to us; he was sweet-talking Mama a lot, even though she was ignoring him. I tried calling him Papa, but he just glared at me and didn’t even say hi.” “Do you think Peanut will be like that?” I asked, even more worried than I had been before. Butch shook his head furiously. “No, no, Fuega kitty! Peanut kitty is a very nice cat. He’s very cheerful and friendly and nice to anyone he meets. He’ll love you.” “He’ll…love me?” I repeated uncertainly. “What’s that mean?” “You don’t know what love means?” he asked in shock. “Um…no,” I mumbled. “I don’t think I’ve ever been loved…” “Fuega kitty, love is very simple,” explained Butch. “Love is…er…love is…um…it’s kinda…uh…well, you’ll know love when you see it.” “You can see love?” “No, no, you can’t…yes, you can…can you? We’ll talk about this later, Fuega kitty, we’re at Carly kitty’s house.” “Wait, I thought we were going to the Hudson pack’s house,” I meowed, craning my neck to look up at the large human dwelling. “Carly kitty is part of the Hudson pack,” explained Butch. “So are Peanut kitty and a dog named Abigail.” Together we walked along the stone pathway towards the front steps of the house. Butch leapt up them and wiped his paws on some sort of furry thing that looked like an animal pelt with human markings on it. Then he tapped his paw a few times on the door. From a square opening near the bottom of the door appeared Carly. She looked more irritable than the last time I had seen her. “What are you two doing here?” she asked, frowning. “We’re here to see Peanut kitty,” answered Butch cheerfully. “Butch, you idiot,” snarled Carly. “He and the rest of my family won’t get back until the evening. Make yourself useful and go show Fuega around the neighborhood.” The Siamese she-cat whipped around with a huff and disappeared inside the house. Butch leaned close to me and whispered, “I think she’s in heat.” “I heard that!” came a furious yowl from inside the house. We scurried down the pathway and along the street, not stopping until we passed two houses on each side. “Females in heat will have young ones if they mate with a male during that time.” The brindle-and-white bulldog explained what the term meant before I could ask him. “Dogs and cats alike tend to be really moody when they’re in heat. That’s one reason that humans spay them; they can’t go into heat if they’re spayed.” I wasn’t really interested in Carly’s condition anymore. My meeting with my father would be put off for at least another day, and I was beginning to take Carly’s suggestion to heart. “Can we explore the other houses?” Butch shrugged. “Sure. Alpha will let us go anywhere as long as we stay on Hart Street and we come back for lunch and dinner.” “So, who lives in the houses behind us?” I looked behind me at the Hudson house and the three other human dens, one on the same side as the Hudson house and two on the other side, neatly aligned with each other. “The fancy house opposite the Hudson pack’s home belongs to the Windsor pack. They’re the wealthiest pack in the neighborhood, and they aren’t friends with anyone else on Hart Street. They have a few kitties, but they’re kept inside all the time. They also have two really big, mean dogs that guard their second house down the road. I wouldn’t cross their path. The only member of the Windsor pack I really know is the little Pekinese named Charlemagne. He’s stuffy, but he’s nice to talk to sometimes. “The house next to the Hudson house with all the colorful flowers in front of it is where Miss Heather lives. She and her auntie are the sweetest humans around. Miss Heather used to live far away from here, near the ocean, but when she was just a baby her mama died and her papa couldn’t take care of her, so he sent her here to live with her auntie, who is the best gardener ever. She grows all sorts of plants in her garden surrounding the house, and all of them are beautiful. And Miss Heather is as good as taking care of animals as her auntie is with plants.” “Butch, what’s the ocean?” I interrupted him quietly, remembering how I had gotten a scratch from every time I interrupted Peach. But Butch didn’t seem angry at all. “The ocean is a pool of water that’s the biggest pool of water in the world. I’ve heard that if you stand on the edge of it, water stretches out at far as the eye can see. That’s why it’s sometimes called the sea. And every evening, it swallows up the sun, and every morning, it coughs it up on the other side of the world. The ocean is that big, Fuega kitty!” “Wow,” I breathed in awe; the biggest pools of water I had seen were puddles in the alleyways in which I lived in. “If I get to see the ocean someday, Fuega kitty, I’ll bring you along, okay?” He smiled, his brown eyes warm, friendly, and…love. That was love. “I’d like that, Butch,” I purred, pressing against his shoulder with my own. I stood there for a few moments, then pulled away and asked, “Who lives in the house across from Miss Heather?” “The one with the fence around it? The spirit lady lives there.” “The spirit lady?” “She’s an old lady, older than Alpha’s mama. The house that she lives in is where Snowflake kitty used to live before her pack abandoned her. It was in bad condition when the spirit lady started living there, and it’s in even worse condition now. Nobody has seen the spirit lady enter or leave the house since she moved in. We—the other pets and I—think she’s a magic lady, a witch, because sometimes we hear strange noises coming from the house, and when the window blinds are occasionally opened, we see weird lights shining out from them.” “Has anyone ever gone inside the house?” I asked, my eyes wide and my ears hungry for more of this tale. “Charlemagne lost a bet against Husky—they used to bet all the time on the weather and they still do sometimes. The loser for this particular bet had to go inside the spirit lady’s house for thirty seconds. Charlemagne barely lasted that long. He ran out, shivering, saying that it was dark and cold, but he could see creepy shadows trying to grab him, and he could hear a high-pitched laugh.” “That’s scary.” I shivered, remembering how Skull had a high-pitched laugh as well. But I shook the memory of him away and asked, “So what about the other houses?” Butch and I walked to the next pair of houses. I recognized the one on the left as Surf’s house, partially due to the fact that he was on the porch. “Hey, Butch,” he greeted the bulldog. Then he looked at me, and his eyes seemed to twinkle. “Hey there, Fuega. How are you doing?” I realized I was staring at him like an idiot and shook myself. “Uh, I’m fine. Butch is showing me the other houses.” “Mind if I join you?” he asked. “Not at all,” I said quickly, before Butch could even say a word. Butch cocked his head at me, but didn’t ask any questions. When Surf jumped off the porch, the three of us padded towards the house across the street. Surf walked beside me, lightly brushing my shoulder with his own. “Husky kitty, you in there?” called Butch. With some difficulty due to his injured leg, Husky crawled through the square opening near the bottom of the front door to the house. A few moments later, the door opened, and a young male human walked out and crouched down to pet the aging tabby. “Hello, Butch,” meowed Husky, only paying mild attention to the human stroking his fur. “And hello to you two as well. Kinda busy at the moment, the rest of the housefolk are inside. It’s been a while since they were all together, so I’m enjoyin’ it while it lasts.” “Alright, we’ll see you later, buddy.” Butch headed to the last four houses on the street, with me and Surf following close behind. “So how are you liking it on Hart Street?” Surf asked me. “It’s nice,” I mewed quietly. “Better than where you used to be?” “Oh, way better,” I blurted out. We looked at each other for a moment, then both chuckled softly. “Yeah, I was born on the streets myself,” the blue-gray tom explained. “But I wasn’t a street cat for as long as you were. My mother and my siblings and I were taken to a shelter not too long after I was born. Brody and Erin brought me to their home when I was only three months old.” “And you don’t mind living with humans?” I asked. “I can’t answer that,” he replied. When he saw my confused face, he went on, “The question should be, ‘And you don’t mind living with Brody and Erin?’ Humans aren’t all the same, Fuega. Some are good, some are bad. Most are in between. Kind of like cats.” “So…do you like living with Brody and Erin?” “They’re good to me. But sometimes I wish I could see what it’s like to live on the streets.” “Trust me, you don’t want to,” I murmured. “Hey, kitties, stop lagging behind!” barked Butch. Surf and I trotted up to him and surveyed the last four houses. One of them, the one next to Surf’s house, was Butch’s house, and the bulldog was explaining who lived in the other three. “The house across from ours, Fuega kitty—” “Um, Butch, I wouldn’t call it ‘ours’…” “—is where the Parker pack lives. They don’t have any pups or pets, but they’re nice, quiet folks. The big house next to theirs was bought by the Windsor pack—they use it for storage and for really big parties. That’s where the two guard dogs spend most of the time. And that last house across from them is up for sale.” “What’s that mean?” I asked. “It means it belongs to no one,” explained Surf, “and a human family can buy it if they can afford it. It’s been up for sale for a while. I don’t know if anyone is going to buy it. We—me, Butch, and the other pets in the neighborhood—use it as one of our meeting places, so—” “CAR!” howled Butch. Before I could do anything, Butch had me by the scruff of my neck, and he and Surf were scurrying off the road. I felt wind on my fur as the car barely missed us. When we were safely on the sidewalk, Butch gently placed me on the ground. “Looks like the Hudsons are back,” remarked Surf. “The Hudsons?” I echoed. And then, without thinking, I ran. Not away from the car or my father or Peach or Skull, but towards them. I didn’t know it then, but I had already decided that I wasn’t going to run away from anything anymore. I was only going to run forward, and not even Butch and Surf yelling after me was going to make me turn around. I sprinted after the car as it drove down the street and pulled into the Hudson house’s driveway. I skidded to a stop and panted as five humans—an adult male, an adult female, and three younger ones—jumped out, along with a large black-and-tan dog. While four of the humans started taking large bags out of the car, the youngest human, a male, scurried to the front porch with the dog at his heels. Carly appeared out of the opening in the door, and the boy happily picked her up in his arms. While all this was going on, I didn’t notice a large tortoiseshell tom slowly crawl out of the car and watch the activity around him with lazy yellow eyes. When I finally did see him, he had taken notice of me and was slowly approaching, which I guess was a good thing, as I was too nervous to even move. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you around here before,” he meowed. His voice was soft and friendly. “No…no, you haven’t,” I stammered. “I just arrived here a couple of days ago.” “Were you…adopted by someone?” “No,” I replied, not explaining anymore. Then I said, “My name is Fuega.” “Is it really?” His yellow eyes widened. “I knew a cat once, who looked a lot like you, and I used to call her Fuega. It means ‘fire’ in Spanish—that’s a human language that one of my housefolk is learning. I called her that because she had ginger fur, kind of like yours, except without the brown patches. She had green eyes like you, too.” “Was her real name Peach?” He blinked in surprise. “Yes, it was. Do you know her?” “She…” I gulped. “She’s my mother.” The tom didn’t say anything; he just stared at me. And I stared back at him, for what seemed like forever, though it could have been just a few moments. I guess I’ll never really know. “Fuega!” Surf’s voice sounded distant and unfamiliar. Just then, a large brindle-and-white bundle of fur slammed into me, knocking me off my paws and causing me to hit the ground hard. It knocked me back into reality even harder; I quickly closed my eyes, trying to block the world out. “You didn’t need to hit her that hard, Butch,” hissed Surf, who sounded like he was standing over me. “Sorry, Fuega kitty.” I felt Butch’s tongue lick the top of my head. “I was just worried, I thought you couldn’t hear me…” “Maybe I should just go…” That was the tortoiseshell tom’s voice. My father’s voice. “Have you talked to Fuega yet, Peanut?” asked Surf. “Y-yes,” he answered, sounding fidgety. “Wish I could talk more, but I really have to go. I just got back from the trip, so, uh…” His voice trailed off, and I heard his paws quickly heading up the porch steps and into the house. “Fuega kitty, are you awake?” asked Butch. “Yes.” I opened my eyes. “But I don’t want to be.”